Reaffirmation

Every once in a while, wait, who am I kidding, nearly every day, I lament the loss of two of my homeschoolers to the public education system. It's the control freak in me. They're happy, excelling, and still very enthusiastic, and, for the most part, I'm pleased with the way it's been going, but there's always the worry that with their heads being stuffed full of someone else's important information they will lose the natural learning interest I tried so hard to encourage as well as drift away from my elitist preferences toward something more bourgeois, more egalitarian.

Then I hear something like this:

Mom, I don't want to play Toontown anymore, I just want to put some classical music on your computer.

Cool.

Sarabelle has been teaching herself acoustic guitar (in addition to the electric and double bass) with a repertoire that includes Red Hot Chili Peppers (John Frusciante being her own Guitar Hero), Seu Jorge's versions of Bowie, some Bob Marley, Janis Joplin, and Led Zeppelin. It's a real treat to hear her practice, and practice is something I never have to ask her to do. Her latest piece is Bach's Bourree in E Minor. She is frustrated that she has not mastered it in two days.



So the moral of the story is, if the foundation is solid, you can put up a tent and camp for awhile on it, the infrastructure will still be there when you're ready to build. Or something like that.

In the meantime, Elle, the girl with no volume control, perhaps inspired by her big sister, has been teaching herself on the recorder. The instrument and music book/CD combo was sent over by Jorge from a stash of Christmas presents left behind in Florida. Maybe "Santa" really is "Satan" anagrammed, but I am not about to discourage that natural interest in learning. No way.